Both the testimonies and the statistics on hate crimes demonstrate it: the 2001 attacks in New York still color the gaze of Muslims, in Quebec and elsewhere. Twenty years later, the misleading amalgamation between Islam and violence remains very present in the West.
“Before September 11 nobody knew where Afghanistan was. Afterwards, international attention turned to the country, but it was immediately portrayed in a very obscure way and associated with terrorism, ”says young lawyer Mina Chamsi, member of the Afghan diaspora.
The one who grew up in Quebec remembers that day very well. In 1re In secondary school, a teacher told his class “it is time for Afghanistan to be invaded” to attack “the bad guys” there; she then collapsed in tears.
“Islam was associated with terrorism with September 11; the look [des gens] changed. It was shocking to me, because we really weren’t raised like that [mes deux sœurs et moi]. And these preconceptions have followed me throughout my journey, ”she says. When she is questioned about her freedom to marry a “non-Afghan” man or even about “her ability to integrate into Montreal society”, she understands very well that she is part of a poorly understood “and unloved minority”. », Exposes the young lawyer.
Coraline Le Moyne, another Muslim Quebecer, also felt the prejudices weigh heavily after the attacks: “It’s as if 2001 had justified the people who wanted to say that Muslims are barbarians. “
The one who converted to Islam in 2001 realized the depth of discrimination when she began to wear the veil. “I was the only woman to work veiled in Granby,” she says. She was thrown a sloche from a passing car, was called “Bin Laden” and “fundamentalist” at the pharmacy where she worked. She and her husband then decided to leave the region to settle in Montreal, she says.
Martin Geoffroy is neither Afghan nor Muslim, but he has also seen this perception change.
In September 2001, the director of the Center of Expertise and Training on Religious Fundamentals (CEFIR) was studying Christian fundamentalism at the doctoral level at the University of Montreal. “Few people were interested in my research topic. We said: “Does fundamentalism still exist?” But on September 11, people started looking for me and calling me to explain to them why extremists had attacked, ”he says.
“It’s as if we said to ourselves from that moment: ‘It exists. They are here. And now, they want us badly ”, sums it up broadly.
A quantifiable phenomenon?
In the United States, FBI data showed that crimes against Muslims peaked within months of the September 11 attacks, dropping from 28 in 2000 to 481 in 2001. They dropped back to 155 as early as 2002, but they have never been as low as before the attacks.
As for Statistics Canada, it was in 1999 that a first survey focused on hate crimes, but it was not until 2009 that enough details on their targets were published, indicated at To have to a communications officer from the federal agency. Since then, these crimes have experienced significant fluctuations from year to year. In 2017, 349 hate crimes against Muslims were reported by police departments across the country, then that number dropped to 166 the following year.
These data have several weak points that limit their usefulness, notes Louis Audet Gosselin, scientific director of the Center for the Prevention of radicalisation leading to violence (CPRMV). First, this type of incident is not systematically reported to the police. Then, some crimes – vandalism of a mosque, for example – are easier than others to attribute to religious motives. Finally, several Islamophobic manifestations are not necessarily criminal.
Hate crimes follow the curve of public debate, observes Mr. Audet Gosselin. “It tends to accentuate reactions, even if these debates are not necessarily motivated by hate. As soon as positions become very divided, polarization can encourage or facilitate the passage to the act of some people. “
Distinguish Islamophobia from Racism
Mr. Geoffroy insisted on his part to differentiate the word “racism”, which designates a clear feeling of superiority in relation to an ethnic group or a culture, from the word “Islamophobia”: “It is rather the fear of the other. , of a particular religion, a feeling of being vulnerable in relation to the other. A discourse that legitimizes certain exclusionary practices, because Islam is perceived as incompatible with Western societies. “
He recently documented events organized by far-right groups in Quebec since 2010 : “It is Islamophobia that most mobilizes these groups. We are more in fear of being invaded than in the idea that we are a superior race ”, he notes again.
Moreover, the term “Islamophobia” did not appear until 1997, in a now famous report from Runnymede Trust, a UK think tank on racial equality. “However, this perception dates from before [les attentats de 2001]. For example, we see a retrograde perception of Islam in cultural productions around colonization, ”says Mr. Audet Gosselin.
But on September 11, 2001, Muslims in the West undoubtedly broke out of their “relative anonymity,” he adds, and the issue of fundamentalism has become omnipresent in public discourse.
The amalgamations too, observe with the same voice both the experts and the Muslim women interviewed by The duty. “The negative view of Muslims has tainted many debates that have no connection with terrorism or jihadism, such as the one on the wearing of the veil, for example”, illustrates Mr. Audet Gosselin.
The terrorist threat may be on the rise around the world, says Mina Chamsi, but here the sense of security of several Muslim communities has weakened or even vanished – especially after the attack on the great mosque of Quebec in 2017 et the London attack last June.
“We must never forget what happened in New York, the victims and their families. But we must use this moment to encourage us to find out more, ”concludes Coraline Le Moyne.
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